That we are not much sicker and much madder than we are is due exclusively to that most blessed and blessing of all natural graces, sleep.

In a word, they failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions.

For at least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols

Books have their destinies like men. And their fates, as made by generations of readers, are very different from the destinies foreseen for them by their authors. Gulliver's Travels, with a minimum of expurgation, has become a children's book; a new illustrated edition is produced every Christmas. That's what comes of saying profound things about humanity in terms of a fairy story.

What man has joined, nature is powerless to put asunder.

I like being myself. Myself and nasty.

All gods are homemade, and it is we who pull their strings, and so, give them the power to pull ours.